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Four experienced and well-respected organisations have signed-on with QPWS to deliver an expanded volunteer program in about 50 parks and forests across Queensland until June 2015.

Under new Friends of Parks contracts, more than 20 part-time co-ordinators will be employed to recruit, train and manage volunteers for an estimated 68,000 hours of exciting new volunteer and voluntourism projects that assist front-line management of parks.

Conservation Volunteers Australia (CVA), the premier conservation volunteering management organisation in Australia, will deliver priority volunteering and voluntourism services statewide. They will also support existing volunteering groups and establish new Friends of Parks groups in southeast and northern Queensland and roll out new campground host programs at Carnarvon Gorge, Wallaman Falls, Broadwater, Goldsborough Valley and Danbulla State Forest.

Australia Nature Tours is one of Australia’s leading voluntourism operators, with 13 years’ experience in delivering quality, ECO-certified conservation and research programs based on strong local partnerships. ANT’s ten new Queensland voluntourism initiatives will include track maintenance and weed control on Hinchinbrook and Fraser islands and at Carnarvon, Lamington and Eungella national parks. They will also clean up beaches and monitor seabirds on Great Barrier Reef islands, and conduct revegetation and interpretation activities in the Daintree.

Wild Mob has an excellent reputation in conservation volunteering running successful hands-on programs from the Great Barrier Reef to the Tarkine wilderness of Tasmania. They will conduct seabird surveys and weed control on Great Barrier Reef islands and Proserpine rock-wallaby surveys on Gloucester Island in the Whitsundays.

ECOllaboration, (Maroochy Waterwatch), is an experienced provider of natural resource management volunteering services on the Sunshine Coast and have excellent links with government agencies and the community. Their projects will deliver more than 20,000 volunteer hours in weed removal and revegetation, staffing visitor information centres, and in maintaining walking trails and multi-use trials. They will also provide campground hosting at Fraser Island, Conondale National Park, and Imbil, Jimna, Amamoor and Brooyar State forests.

Editor’s note: Under these new arrangements which are still being finalised, Fraser Island will be a ‘Friends of Parks’ beneficiary from CVA, Australia Nature Tours and ECOllaboration, (Maroochy Waterwatch) – some new members for FINIA perhaps?